The Job Prospects for Whites are Not Quite as Bad as You Read in the Paper

Eduardo Porter used his column to point out that Donald Trump got support from many whites who felt that they were being left behind. While there is evidence to support this view, one item in the piece may have misled readers.

The column includes a table showing the change in employment since the start of the recession for white, African Americans, Hispanics, and Asians. While the latter three groups all had increases in employment of at least 2 million, employment for whites fell by almost 1 million.

This can be misleading since the main reason for the difference is that the number of working-age whites actually fell during this period, while the number of working-age people in these other groups rose. The Census Bureau reported that there were 125.2 million non-Hispanic whites between the ages of 18 and 64 in 2010. In 2015 this number was down to 122.9 million. By contrast, the number of non-Hispanic African Americans rose from 24.2 million to 25.6 million. The number of Asians in this age band rose from 10.1 million to 11.8 million. There was a considerably larger rise in the number of Hispanics over this period.

In short, this was a period of weak employment growth, but workers from all demographic groups suffered. The numbers in this piece give a misleading picture in implying that white workers suffered disproportionately.